Share your ways to make more of family days out during the summer hols with PizzaExpress - £300 Love2Shop voucher to be won! NOW CLOSED

[EmmaMumsnet]

With the long school holidays stretching out ahead of us, the thought of filling every day with entertainment is enough to exhaust any parent. So how to take a few simple activities and extend the fun across the full six weeks?

This summer, PizzaExpress is teaming up with Ice Age: Collision Course to give families great days out. Here’s what PizzaExpress has to say: “Come and visit our family-friendly restaurants across the UK and try our delicious new summer menu. We even have lots of gluten-free dishes and kids can try our Piccolo menu which features mini plates of grown-up favourites – for even the fussiest eaters.

While you wait for your food, your children can enjoy completing our Ice Age: Collision Course activity pack and even enter a competition to win a 5-day holiday to Hollywood! Simply visit a restaurant and draw a picture of your favourite Ice Age character with a pizza to be in with a chance of winning the holiday to Hollywood, Ice Age toys, goody bags, Pizza Making Parties and much more...”

PizzaExpress would love to hear your tips for making family fun last a bit longer - without constantly dishing out cash.

Could you encourage your children to do some creative writing based on a film they've watched - or put on their own performance after a trip to the cinema? Perhaps you come up with crafty activities which tie in with places you've visited or things the kids have seen? Or even encourage your DCs to cook by recreating recipes from a meal out? If you've arranged a day trip, do you extend the adventure by using different forms of transport to get to your destination? Maybe you make the preparation for a day out- like making a picnic and packing bags for the day - all part of the fun?

Please share your tips for making the most of days out and finding ways to make holiday fun last all summer long. Comment below and you will be entered into a prize draw where one Mumsnetter will win a £300 Love2Shop voucher.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard T&Cs Apply

Take a picnic and snacks so you don't have top pay out for food. Check out your local facebook groups and council web pages for free events and make the most of your local parks and green spaces.

Look out for deals and vouchers for places, kellogs are doing adults go free at the moment- can save money this way

i always check what going on at local national trust/woodlands/rspb conserves as many of them have free activities on through the holidays including nature trails, kite making, knights/princesss days etc

we go for walks along the seafront or beach, we also have loads of parks local to us with a cycle track going through our village to The Gower and up towards Brecon so plenty for them to do

Take a picnic complete with lots of drinks and flask of tea for yourself to somewhere outdoors where there is no arcade or funfair or the likes to pay through the nose! Take bat and ball and play rounders , it will be a treat that does not cost too much in the long school holidays.

We go for walks in forests and by the riverside looking at all the wildlife... it is so much fun and informative... If you are unsure of what the animals,birds, insects etc then buy a wildlife book.

We give the kids old digital cameras so that they can take their own pictures and print out their best ones to put on the wall

I find if you invite lots of families or friends to go with this usually keeps the children happy and stops them getting bored of each others company

Pack picnics - the kids love them anyway and view them as a treat and that way you can save money and spend more on the actual day out :) I also love taking pictures and collecting paraphernalia for my kids to create scrapbooks throughout the holidays so that they can look back on the memories we created :)

Start early, keep them fed and moving (national parks are good) and they will be asleep by the journey home

I find that good preparation means that the day can be better spent. I pack picnics with plenty of cold drinks as well as flasks for tea, extra fruit for snacks later in the day. We have spare clothes and picnic blankets in the car too. With all needs catered for the day is then focused around whatever activity we've chosen and saves time and money!

Try not to cram too many activities into one day and then you can spread things over the holidays. It doesn't always need to involve money. Trips to the park, picnics, walks, duck feeding etc. Kids love all of that stuff. Sometimes i say that when we get home they can choose an ice lolly out of the freezer which saves on buying expensive ice-creams when out :-)

camp out in the garden of your house then you know where they are

it does not cost anything and handy for toilets

Use public transport if you can. It makes a day out a bit longer, young children find it exciting to use different modes of transport, and older children can get involved with planning by checking timetables and ticket prices.

A couple of years ago we tried to find and photograph roads starting with every letter of the alphabet. The boys loved it and it was free!

We're putting together a 'bucket list' of free/cheap activities that we'll cross off as we go along! Things like take a picnic to the park, climb a tree and go on a mini beast safari. Good fun planning and partaking :-)

try and get them to bed early so that they can wake up bright and early to make the most of the day

spend time in the local park with a picnic.

We invite friends over for picnics and try to attend lots of the activities and events at the local children's centres. Either free or small charges.

we collect little trinkets then scrapbook them when we get home

i get the kids to write a summer list of all the things they want to do so we can tick them off as we go along and then at the end of the summer they can remember everything they did! Some things are trips out to places they want to go, others are just experiences like day at the beach, picnic in the park and we always do come dine with me which the kids love as they get to think up their own theme and then help cook too!

Long walks with our dog and picnics

we normally bring part of our day back home with us -- such as shells, leaves, stones etc and we do something with them like make pictures or stick them in drawings etc to remember the day for longer

i tell each child to pick an activity. i allocate a day each. this seems to work for my family and gets the other children to participate in activities they normally wouldnt.

picnics in interesting places are always a winner. Get to know your local countryside. And in bad weather lots of arts and crafts. Improvise with stuff at home - cardboard from toilet rolls, old plastic bottles, bits of string etc can all be put to imaginative use!